A Blasé time??

One month less one day until Tanya and I get married. I'm excited. Trust me!!! But for some reason, I have a hard time showing it. Don't get me wrong. I love Tanya with all my heart. I constantly think about us living our life together as husband and wife and having children and growing old together. Yet, with less than a month until our big day, I can't help but feel less than 100% yell out loud, pump my fists in the air, give a big "Woooooo!!" excited. Perhaps it is the part of me that is nervous over being the centre of attention, but it seems lately that the only things that get me really excited are going on our honeymoon (for the trip to Napa and San Fran, you perverts!!), collecting Infinite Crisis (DC Comics), and seeing Superman Returns on June 30th.

Now, don't take this the wrong way, I'm truly excited in my own right about our upcoming wedding. I'm very proud of how we planned everything together. Despite the few disagreements, everything has gone pretty smoothly and I couldn't be happier with our choices we've made. Yet something is there, in the back of my mind and I really can't pinpoint it as to what it is that has made me so blasé this past while. I know it is affecting Tanya a lot and I try not to let it show, but she knows.

Jeremy thinks it is because we are living together, have been together for 9 years and are practically married without the title. That could be part of the reason, but I really don't know the rest of it and it really tears me up inside to know that I am causing this unhappiness to Tanya for our biggest day. I wish I could explain what goes on in my mind, but I'm not the best at doing it. Perhaps work stress is a par to fit, but I don't know exactly for sure I can say that. Work has been pretty hectic. I feel like I'm not getting as much done as I should and then people ask if I got the work done and I feel like my reasons for saying no are just plain dumb excuses. I really don't know what it is. I'm hoping that this goes away soon. I think that once I am off work (in 3.5 weeks), the reality of me getting to marry the most beautiful and wonderful person I know will smack me in the face like a big red brick, and that I'm truly the luckiest guy int he world will make me jump for joy and yell "Woooooooooooooo!!!"

I guess the other thing that seems to pre-occupy my mind is the fact that two of my co-workers are leaving at the end of this week. Changes are a happening and I'm not good with change. Can't say it is a big, huge thing, but I think I'll miss them and their ability to bug the hell out of me every day. I'll miss that. A lot.

Well, I think I've exhausted what is in my head. I need to think a bit and apologize to my most amazing fiancé... one sec. okay... done. Not as successful as I hoped, but i'll make it up to her. ;-)

-->> I appreciate your thoughts... only if they jive with mine.

Hey Devon!!!

What's a butter-face girl???

=D

My parents' fence

Went back to Richmond for the Victoria Day long weekend. Got Jeremy (http://www.seakrait.blogspot.com) to help me replace my parents' fence and gate leading to the backyard of their house. If you go to Jeremy's blog and look in his archive, I'm sure you'll come across a posting where he basically made fun of my plan for replacing the fence. See I was at work and I wanted to convey what we were doing. Not having access to AutoCad, I was unable to create a scale drawing of the new fence and gate so I used MS Paint. Those of you that have used it, know that it doesn't do much in terms of creating a plan drawing, but it was all that I had, and Jeremy decided to post it as the culmination of my thought processes, well, after a full Saturday and 1/2 day Sunday, I'm proud to report that the fence and gate are holding up perfectly, and my plan was awesome!!! so :P to Jeremy.

I must say though, that despite the fact that we were working until 10:30pm that Saturday night and still weren't done (my cordless drill ran out of batteries, oh and on a side note, Jeremy, I was telling a co-worker about the batteries running dead and he said they should invent a cordless drill with the cord option like you were describing!! So I say go for it!!!) it was a LOT of fun. Jeremy had a great idea to put a caster on the bottom of the gate so it would hold it up better and not put as much torque on the gate post, but unfortunately, the concrete path isn't level and the caster was getting stuck in the gate closed position so I had to take it off. But the gate does close and it does stay open quite nicely with a little hook latch that attaches to another post.

A few things we learned that weekend:

1. Definitely start early and get extra wood. It may cost a bit initially, but you end up realizing that you need to use more.
2. Wear runners or steel toed shoes. Definitely not sandals and barefeet. You might get dirt flung at your feet or concrete poured on you or concrete slopped on you.
3. Always add water to dry concrete, not the other way around, despite what the instructions on the bag of post-haste may tell you.
4. Measure twice and cut once. While we actually only made one measuring mistake, I figure it is sound advice for anyone doing any woodwork.

That being said, I think Jeremy and I could definitely start a house building company.

Black and Decker Rules!!

One Month + 10 Days

Wow, I can't believe that there is only that little time left until Tanya and I get married. Time just seems to fly by. Especially with the nice weather. Seems like Spring has sprung for a lot of people that I know. Tanya is TOCing pretty frequently and the teachers she subs for really like her and are recommending her for full-time positions. Gloria (http://www.goma-on-the-go-blogspot.com) just got the "To" and "The" removed from her title. She is now Assistant Editor at the company she works at. Jeremy (http://www.seakrait.blogspot.com) just got a bunch of new paintball equipment and will be turning 27 in precisely 25 days. Plus, he has the distinction of being neck deep in his application process to become a cop. Yay no more speeding tickets for me!!! Although he just needs to get his RCMP posting in Nanaimo. ;-)

As for me, I seem to be moving on in work with some bigger projects and bigger responsibilities. We just wished a co-worker well on Friday as she embarks on a year of Maternity Leave. We have also just welcomed a new junior scientist into our office today and will be saying farewell to two people at the end of May. Our receptionist is moving far up north and my office-buddy is going to do her Master's in Environmental Engineering at UBC this upcoming September. With all the changes, additions, and moving into new office space, I've been "upgraded" from "field bitch" to Phase 1 ESA Guru.

For those of you unfamiliar with Phase 1 assessments, they are the initial works we do as Environmental Consultants for our clients. It involves historical research on properties and the surrounding lands, site visits to determine where if any, potential environmental concerns may be, and recommendations to our clients for further investigative or remedial work. I am currently in the process of completing my first 2 Phase 1 assessments which may not seem like much, but seeing as how I'm the new office Phase 1 person, it is big. Plus, I'm being attached to larger scale projects instead of the small monitoring/sampling jobs that had me running all over the island and contracting pneumonia (another story for another time).

So, all in all, a great spring. Plus the fact that you can't beat 19°C weather when driving to work in the morning and a high of 27°C mid-day, I'm quite happy.

Our wedding is shaping up nicely. We seem to have our final guest count, well, almost, probably end up +/- 5 or so guests after all is said and done, but we needed our rough final number to give to Brockhouse this weekend... which happens to be a long-weekend!!!! Wuhoo!!! All that is left is to finish our wedding favours and oh, my speech. Eh... I think I'll wing it. =)

Going back to Vancouver this long weekend, meeting Tanya's family for the first time, celebrating my brother's and sister's birthday (May 22nd), and fixing my parent's fence and gate to their backyard with Jeremy on Saturday. Hopefully Jeremy has priced out the 1x4, 2x4, and 4x4 wood at Home Depot that I asked him to... oh and wood screws too!! I think May, June, July, and August are the best months of the year!!!

Till next posting... which is going to hopefully be later today. Tanya and I went wine tasting this weekend to an invitation only event and it was AWESOME!!! I'll provide more details later...

---If you're not sure where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else.

mmm... free wine and food!!!

There we were, Tanya and I, driving down through Cowichan Bay and as we were driving back towards the Trans-Canada Hwy., we discovered Vancouver Island Wine. This was last summer, we were touring around the various local places between Victoria and Nanaimo when we came upon Cherry Point Winery (http://www.cherrypointvineyards.com/). It is a local winery run by the Cowichan Tribes First Nations (Duncan Area) and has some of the tastiest wine I've tasted. Not that I'm a wine expert or anything, but boy is it good, especially for estate grown grapes and a local winery. The best part about the winery and the others we eventually discovered is that their tastings are free!!! Yup, free wine tastings. We also discovered Merridale Cidery on the road to Shawnigan Lake, and Marley Farms winery which makes fruit wine blends from estate grown and locally grown fruit. Yes, Marley as in Bob Marley. His cousin is the farm owner. Well, as I digress... We have gone back a few times, our last being with Gloria and Devon last September.

Our first trip back this spring, we ventured out a couple weekends ago and ended up buying a case of wine. Some Pinot Gris (estate), Coastal Red and Coastal White (both of which are a composite of estate grapes and imported Okanagan grapes). Their award winning Gewurtztraminer wine was sold out and their new stock wasn't going to be available until after Mother's Day. However, seeing as how we purchased a case, they invited us to their special 2006 wine tasting event at which time they unveil their new vintages but only for their case members. So, we got a free pass for three people and after wrangling a co-worker, ventured back to Cherry Point Winery this past Sunday to taste buy and taste and buy and eat!!

We got there around 2pm (started at 1pm) and were shocked to see at least a couple hundred people there. We assumed maybe 50 or so, but wow... Cherry Point Winery is huge!!!

We got in line and it was awesome. First they sampled their white wines with various types of fish, oysters, and mussels, then the red wines with pulled beef, cheeses, roasted vegetables, pita, humous, roasted pig, pasta, and with their special Blackberry Port, they served it in Bernard Calebaut chocolate cups. Did I mention the wine was pretty much all you can drink and the food was all you can eat and it was all free!!!!

Oh, and we also ended up bumping into an old High School friend by the name of Richie Overgaard. He was there doing the same thing... tasting and buying. And we also agreed that Gloria would have to move back to Vancouver to help Jeremy plan our 10 year high school reunion.

So if anyone out there ever visits Vancouver Island, I highly recommend Cherry Point Winery in Cowichan Bay.

Cheers!!

DC Nation

So, there I was, about 5 years ago now, when I came upon a bookstore named Powell Books in Portland, Oregon. I was there with Tanya perusing the stacks of new and used books and I found their comic book collection. In the vast array of Spiderman, Batman, etc. was "The Death of Superman", "A World Without Superman", and "The Return of Superman" all in their compilation/graphic novel glory. I bought them for real cheap and proceeded to get hooked into the greatest comic book comeback in history.

See, the story goes, back in the 1990s, DC Comics was preparing to finally marry Clark Kent and Lois Lane in their Superman comics, but the WB higher ups decided that they wanted the comic book wedding to coincide with the TV Show wedding on the new series Lois & Clark starring Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain. The comic writers were stuck as they had to wait a while before the TV show caught up to the comic, so in the end, they threw the idea out there that they would Kill Superman. That would give them enough time of story-writing to wait for the TV show and finally have a marriage. They created Doomsday and had him kill the most popular and greatest Superhero ever. It made CNN, Time Magazine, and probably thousands of newspapers all over the world. The Death of Superman. At the time, I wasn't a huge comic book fan or a Superman fan to be truthful, but years later, standing in Powell Books, I thought, this would be a great way to read the story after the fact. I was effectively hooked. Well, almost. I didn't know I was hooked.

A year later, I was perusing a Safeway I think and spied a Transformers Comic. Not the original Marvel comics of block drawn Transformers, but really well drawn Transformers. This was new and they were back. I proceeded to go everywhere I could to find all the issues of the 6 issue series. Even so far as stopping in Grants Pass on the way to San Francisco with Tanya to pick up some comics I bought from a guy off E-Bay. From Transformers, I added GI Joe which was also making a triumphant return. Wow, my childhood was coming back. While the Transformers and GI Joe were great for the most part, the series quickly lost interest for me.

Around the beginning of 2004, I spied a DC comic called Identity Crisis. It was a chilling 7 part series that delved into the lives of everyone's favourite superheroes. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin, Elongated Man (ha ha Jeremy)... and how their alter egos play havoc with their family lives. Identity Crisis was just the tip of the iceberg for me though as I was about to find out about Infinite Crisis (http://www.dccomics.com). This series, which I just bought Issue #7 for, has completely flipped the DC Universe upside down and really provoked me to think about the characters created by such ingenius minds.

What makes a superhero super? Why do people look up to these costumed marvels? Should superheroes be completely altruistic (see Golden Age of Comics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Comics) or should there be shades of grey (see Infinite Crisis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Crisis).